In June, we wrote about the fifth anniversary of the Mountainfilm Commitment Grant, and now we’re proud to announce the winners for 2014. These individuals will recieve a $5,000 grant and a MacBook Pro computer.

The number of applicants increase annually, so the competition gets fiercer. We thank all of those who submitted letters. 

Alexandria Bombach and Mo Scarpelli
Frame by Frame (film)
Frame by Frame is a feature-length documentary that follows four Afghan photojournalists as they navigate a young and dangerous media landscape. Through intimate verité moments and never-before-seen archival footage, the film reveals the struggle of overcoming the odds to capture the truth. Director Alexandria Bombach most recently shared her film Common Ground with audiences at Mountainfilm 2014.

David Byars
Me the People (film)
Following his sneak peek addition into the 2014 festival called Recapture, David Byars has proposed a project to tell the full story of a new wave of protests against the BLM. Me the People is a character-driven film that will focus on the voices for and against public lands and will touch upon themes of wilderness, stewardship, civil disobedience, the mindset of armed resistance and equitable justice.

Cat Cannon
Irene Bennalley, Navajo Lady Sheepherder (working title) (film)
Through the story of Irene Bennalley — a Navajo woman who inherited her family grazing permit near Shiprock, New Mexico — director Cat Cannon will explore the larger dilemma of balancing cultural preservation and ecological health. This is Cannon’s first documentary.

Kahlil Hudson and Alex Jablonski
Young Men & Fire (film)
The team behind the 2012 festival selection Low & Clear is working on a new film that unfolds over the course of one fire season in the America West. The film follows three young men — all part of a single wildland firefighting crew — as they wrestle with loyalty, fear, courage, love and defeat in the face of nature's most elemental force.

Scott Upshur
Project Boom (film)
Project Boom, which was featured in short form in the crowd-sourced documentary Dear Governor Hickenlooper that played at Mountainfilm 2014, is about the U.S. government's experiments fracking with nuclear warheads in Colorado and New Mexico. Filmmaker Scott Upshur, a regular contributor to Mountainfilm, examines correlations between government figures, business interests and health and safety decisions in the late 1960s and mirrors them to today’s fracking situation.